Let's think better thoughts. On the non-Lulu new material, Robert Trujillo tells Gulf News the following:

"We've been busy writing and recording. We've got a couple of new songs
we have been working on the past couple of weeks. The writing process
for the new Metallica album has begun. We've been in the studio with
Rick Rubin, working on a couple of things, and we're going to be
recording during the most of next year. We've got a lot of work ahead of
us. But the great thing is that we have sort of already jumped off the
launch pad and we're swimming. It's happening. It's reality. It's a lot
of fun, there are a lot of ideas, and we're really excited about the new
record."

We suppose that means that the video above is merely a joke. It's getting kind of hard to tell these days.

Which is not to disagree, in the least, with Dan Brockman's essay on Lulu-- which we highly recommend, (and which SPIN also liked). It actually convinced us to listen to the record last night. And having put in the hard, hard work of listening to the damn thing, we then felt obliged -- since so few will actually follow in our footsteps -- to peruse the acres of acrimonious ink being spilled on this travesty's behalf.